Heart
by HerWretchedWastrel
Summary: Help me find my heart," she begged, gripping his shoulders tightly with desperation. "Help me find my heart, and I'll help you find your Eyes." Misa died to reunite with her love. Instead, she enters the hellish Mu, and only one person can help her. BxM
1. Heart

**Alright...so this was actually written as a sequel to this _very_ well-written LxLight story I found in the dn_kink meme, but I forgot the name, and I haven't been able to find it. Basically, when people die, they enter a hellish Mu, and the only way to escape is to find their soulmate. In the original story, Light starts out looking for Misa, but, you guessed it, ends up with L instead. I liked it, but I immediately felt bad for Misa, and for B, who made a short appearance but was presumably left alone. SOOO...this was my solution.**

**You don't have to read that story to get this one, though, I'm pretty sure it stands well on its own. Please read and enjoy!**

**-Hana**

* * *

><p>She couldn't breathe, she couldn't see, she couldn't hear. She could only feel, touch, <em>endure<em> the blackness that swallowed her whole, cold walls pulsated around her clammy skin like the beating heart of a constricted snake. They pushed her downwards, contracting, forcing, squeezing their sinister arms around her in a warm embrace before violently tearing away a piece of her and shoving her down the neverending spiral. _So this was Death_.

Yes. This was the process of death. A black hole rotating, descending into a eternal spiral. With blackness surrounding her and crushing her like a castaway doll? Oh. Doll...yes. She was a doll. How could she have forgotten? She laughed, and laughed, and laughed, the pain peeling away at her flesh and slipping into her veins. And then, she opened her eyes, and realized she was still falling.

Misa, despite the countless murders she had committed, had never really given a large portion of thought to what death exactly _was_. She had always believed that there was a place for the righteous and a place for the damned. Even if others (specifically, her sister) found this thinking childish, Misa couldn't bear to think any other way, especially after the horrific deaths of her parents. The only way she ever had a _remotely_ pleasant sleep was to believe that they were somewhere happy and safe.

But now...as she stepped from the highest of buildings and fell towards the ground with maddening speed, everything seemed to have suddenly stopped. Her long eyelashes blinked furiously, giving the cement beneath her slight butterfly kisses. Her forehead dipped a bit, making contact with the earth, and then Misa realized that these last seconds of her life, these last _excruciating_ moments were to be last minutes, hours, years, maybe even decades. Pain erupted through her body as the front of her skull slowly cracked, as the bloody dripped down like an hourglass onto the pavement. Pieces of bone meticulously pierced the inside of her head, and she screamed, and screamed, and screamed with horror and writhed, writhed, writhed with meandering torment. Her lips were always silent. Her body was always still.

Tears pricked the corners of her eyes, shuddering gasps begging to me let out as her neck hit the ground and bent, and twisted, and snapped. In a few seconds. In a few eternities.

The pain was unbearable. It was horrifying, brutal. She felt bile eat and inch its way up her throat. _Would this ever end?_ she wondered helplessly? Perhaps. In a few forevers. She would just have to wait, and endure, and hope.

But then, her neck was completely broken, and her body was fully on the ground. The last of her sight was of the cloudy forecast, of tall skyscrapers shooting up from the ground to pierce the heavens above. And then her sight blurred, darkened, and dimmed. Then, nothing.

_The blackness took over again, but this time she nearly welcomed its presence._

_~0~0~0~_

She opened her eyes widely as a violent intake of breath rocked throughout her body. A hoarse cough rose up and racked her throat... dry, and cracked, and peeling. Her hands were grasping fistfuls of dead grass, and at the back of her mind she noted that she was on her knees. A string of blood dangled precariously from her lips, her body still shaking from the forcefulness of it all. Slowly, her eyes drifted away from the translucent ground beneath her and towards the dim sky above her. Everything seemed so vast. So big. And she felt so undoubtedly alone.

_There was a hole, a malevolent cavity that was eating away at her humanity, and a great big void of nothingness that filled her entire being._

Still in a daze, Misa struggled to stand, her knees dirty and wobbly. She grasped a nearby tree weakly, her fingertips clawing into the peeling bark as she stumbled onto her feet. She felt so undeniably _weak_, as if something had been taken from her, and she needed to get it back. That was when she noticed the pain shooting through her chest. Her brown eyes glanced down wearily, but widened in horror, shock, and disgust when they encountered the reality of it all.

There was a hole in her chest. A literal_ hole_ in her chest, as if someone, _something__, _had ripped through her body and torn away her heart. There was blood running steadily down her black dress, flesh dangling from the violently-wrought opening. She...she lost her heart. _Someone had taken her heart._

With this realization, something inside her died. The light in her eye flickered into a dim nothing, and silently, she joined the million other wandering souls, searching for something to fill the hole in her chest. All alone in midst of a crowd.

_She had an inexplicable need to find her other half...Light, maybe? But Death had an almost jeering way of clearing judgement, and part of her hated him with everything she had. A far larger part, of course, still **needed** him._

"Light..." she called hoarsely, bumping through crying spirits that wandered aimlessly. "Light..."

_I want my heart back, Light._

There was no time to lose, yet she had all the time in the world.

_~0~0~0~_

She staggered into a field, barren, dead, filled with the rotting remains of things that could have been, and of things that might be. There was no sun, no light, no comfort. Just the cold, and the gnawing want to be whole again. _How long have I been walking?_ she asked herself vainly. The pain in her feet suggested days, even perhaps weeks, but it seemed as if she had only just begun. The loneliness was beginning to become overbearing, frightening, even. The other spirits terrified her, horrified her. The only hope she had was Light.

A movement caught the corner of her eye, and she immediately backed up several steps. She...she had seen what she could become. She had seen loneliness corrupt human souls into frightening, grotesque monsters. She couldn't bear to see anymore, and steadied her feet to break into a run.

"Misa Amane."

Her blood froze, her hands began to visibly shake as they hurried to cover up the visible void that was in her chest. Her figure was trembling as she slowly turned around to face whoever spoke to her.

She gave a double-take.

"...Ryuzaki? No...no, you aren't L..." Indeed, this man had an uncanning resemblance to the detective that she had both liked and loathed what seemed an eternity ago. The had the same hair, the same posture, the same despicable clothes. But...he wasn't L. There was a torn and ragged blindfold bound tightly across his eyes. The fabric was crusty with dried blood; crimson trails made their way down the pasty white of his skin.

_A sick, demented sort of happiness bubbled up inside her. He's just like me._

"Correct," the man before her said dully. "I am not L. Just his defective...backup." He was seated in a strangely _normal_ position, fiddling around with dead grass, bending, shaping, crafting. Misa noted with distasteful interest that there were at least a hundred grass dolls littered across the ground.

"Backup?" she questioned, hesitantly taking a seat next to him. "And you knew my name. How?"

His fingers kept working. "I know everyone's name." he said simply.

Misa laughed nervously. The man was making her more than a little uncomfortable, but it was as if she was _supposed_ to be here and listen. There wasn't anything else more important she could do, anyways. Except, maybe, find her heart.

She pushed a strand of hair behind her ear, trying to keep her composure. "How do you know people's name?" she asked, forcing a small smile.

His movements suddenly stopped. The half-made doll hung limply from his hand, nestled in a caress from its maker. He craned his neck to face her, staring at her with those blind eyes. "It never ends," he said quietly. "You'd think it'd end with death."

The doll was suddenly violently ripped to shreds, the strange man destroying it with cold precision. There was a yelp, and Misa fell from her seat, startled, crawling backwards in fear.

He threw the remains into the still winds, and watched them fade away. And then it was all as if nothing had happened. He plucked more dead grass and began to construct yet another doll. Misa's first impulse was to run.

She sat back down next to him.

"Um..." she stuttered, not bearing to look at the strange man directly, "H...how do you know everyone's name?"

His fingers visibly tensed, but went straight back to work with the new doll. "I have the Eyes."

_If you would have had a heart, it would have skipped a beat._

Misa's eyes widened with shock and wonder. "You mean like...Shinigami eyes?" she asked in awe. A mad sort of excitement bounced inside of her.

"Yes," he said. "Like you once did."

She wasn't sure if her body could tremble any more viciously This man...she knew nothing about him. But he knew far too much about her. It was disturbing, and odd. But the pain in her chest intensified, and once again she entertained the insane notion that this strange, strange man could help her recover her heart.

_I can be your Eyes._

"You're creepy." she stated. "You're creepy, and a stalker."

A slow, rumbling chuckle escaped his throat quietly, hoarsely, as if he had never truly laughed in his life. "It's strange, and interesting, and horrifying," he said, more to himself than to her. "When we were alive, we used the Eyes to see a person's true name and death date. Now, I see everyone's name and their chains."

Misa scooted a bit closer, her initial revulsion slowly overcome by interest and curiosity. "Chain?" she repeated.

He (presumably) glanced at her, the yellowed white of the blindfold contrasting against the milkiness of his skin. "Yes, chain. Their chain of fate." He nimbly formed the hands of his doll, smoothing it in an almost affectionate manner. "That's the only way a person can get out of this hell."

_The two souls were one, once, before Sin tempted and destroyed the neverending circle._

Misa looked at him incredulously. "You mean like..." -she blushed furiously as she thought of Light- "...soulmates?" If she would have looked down, she would have noticed the hole had become a bit larger.

He placed the finished doll next to him, picking up one of the dozens of others that surrounded the area. "Exactly. In order to escape _nothingness_, you must find the person you care about more than yourself."

She nodded furiously. "That sounds easy enough," she said, her cheeks warming. For a moment, she forgot that _he_ had taken her heart.

He placed a doll gently in her hand, taking the other one into his own. "Not exactly," he responded. "The chain of fate means that there is only one person who can be with you. One person out of _billions._"

Her heart sank. "Oh." she said quietly. "Is that why there are people moving together constantly?"

"Yes."

"Then why aren't you looking for a way out?"

"Because I don't have anyone," he said casually, as if talking about the weather. "The chain of fate doesn't apply to me. I am destined to be alone. The one purpose I had in life, I failed. I don't care."

And then a smile sliced its way across his face, a demented Cheshire grin. "L's all alone too," he said almost gleefully. "He's got no one." He paused, and then let out a rumbling, bizarre, almost _fake_ cackle. "And if he ends up with anyone, it'll probably be Kira. Can you imagine? The great L becoming his most hated foe's whore?" His face darkened with sinister satisfaction. "That's more than enough to make up for my rotting here."

Misa froze, the small smile she had vanishing completely. "...Kira? You mean Light?"

He hummed with content. "That's right."

She leaned forward, grabbing his shoulders in desperation. "You saw him. You saw _them_, didn't you? Where did they go? _Where did they go?_"

_The prince galloped away with his beloved, leaving a path of death and despair in wake of their happiness._

He shoved her roughly away from himself, brushing his shoulders in disdain. "Yes. He was looking for you, Misa Amane."

A sense of paranoia swelled inside of her, and suddenly she was crying in fear and in hurt and in love. "He took my heart!" she cried incoherently. "I don't have my heart, and I want my heart...I need my heart..."

She sank to her knees and sobbed, and sobbed, and sobbed. "I want my heart back..." she mumbled. And then a strange train of thought entered her mind. She stumbled back onto her feet and approached the stranger. She grasped his shoulders once more, gripping them so tightly she was sure she heard a bone crack. "Help me find my heart," she babbled through her tears. "Help me find my heart, and I'll help you find your eyes."

He tensed beneath her fingers, as if surprised by the notion that this _stupid girl_ had figured something important out. "...my eyes...?" he asked in interest.

She nodded violently. "Yes. L took them from you, didn't he?" She wasn't sure how she was figuring this out, she wasn't sure how she believed...no, _knew_, this information. But all that mattered was that the emptiness inside her was slowly eating away her soul, and she needed to find her heart quickly.

_Find the heart, find the man._

"...Yes...yes he did," the man agreed. "He took my eyes, and now I am blind, only seeing names and chains." There was a smile curling at the corner of his mouth, and Misa wasn't sure whether it was fake or just demented. "But I don't really care. Why should I help you?"

Her grip on his shoulders tightened even more, and she felt him wince slightly. "Because you _do_ care. You want revenge, right? I want revenge too. Help me find my heart, and I'll help you find your eyes."

_It was vengeance that destroyed her, vengeance that doomed her, and vengeance that offered her hope._

He was silent, but the blindfold was becoming visibly redder. He was bleeding, Misa noted, watching a tiny sliver of blood sneak from under the cloth and run down his cheek. He did nothing to wipe it away.

And then, a sigh.

"Alright," he said dully, shuffling up to his feet and wading through the sea of dolls that he had created. "I'll help you. If for anything, to see L suffer, and writhe, and _rot._"

She nodded, though she wasn't sure whether she felt this way towards L, or towards Light. It was strange really. This entire world was strange, so perhaps it didn't really matter. "I'll be your eyes," she told him. "But you'll have to be my heart."

She wasn't sure what she meant by that, and she wasn't sure if _he _knew what she meant either, but they both went along with it, and began to trek through the pain and the blackness, and the nothingness. She paused and looked at him. "I'm sorry. I didn't get your name," she said. "What is it?"

He stopped and faced her blandly. "It's not important. But you can call me B."


	2. Eyes

**Okay, so I found the fic that I wrote this as a sequel to: http: .?thread= 812755#t812755 (remove the spaces). It's Light/L, so enjoy, you yaoi craving fangirls.**

** But as it turns out...this fic is a fanfic of a fanfic D: which I did not know. I have NEVER read "True Elisions" by Ezran, though I do very much want to now. However, just in case, I'll just say this- this fiction was written with only the above fanfiction in mind. Bits and pieces of the original "True Elisions" will probably make its way into my writing, but this story is my own. This universe is my own. Sorry if anyone is confused. God knows I am.**

**ANYWAYS. Please enjoy :) Next chapter will be the final one, and considerably shorter.**

**-Hana**

* * *

><p>In Mu, there was no sun to brighten day, nor was there a moon to illuminate night. The sky never changed- it was constantly a dim, murky grey, endlessly spanning towards a horizon that did not even exist. There was no life, no vibrant color to speckle the landscape. There was nothing but the eternal feeling of absence, the gnawing pain of knowing that something that once <em>belonged<em> was gone. Time had no place here, not even Death itself. The only thing that resided consistently was the neverending loop of loneliness.

_All dead...all dust and gone._

So it only made sense that, to Misa, her journey with "B" had taken weeks in hours...in days of months...or perhaps just a moment. But her chest had begun to bleed heavily just several steps into their search, making her collapse onto the dusty ground, her body convulsing violently as she coughed up mouthfuls of blood.

"B" had only stood by and waited, watching with unseeing eyes. The tattered blindfold, stained with streaks of red, seemed more haunting than when she had initially met him...the thought that he was blindly watching her through the yellowed cloth seemed extremely disturbing. But then, he crouched down near her, not necessarily _ staring_ at her, but merely facing her direction. He scooted to where she was grasping at the ground, still gagging and bleeding and _dying._

"Are you finished?" he asked blandly.

She struggled to cease her convulsions, facing him with the darkest look she could muster. Her limbs refused to stop their trembling as she staggered to her knees. "I...am fine..." she choked out before burying her face into the floor as she felt another round of bile rise up in her throat. A pool of red was beginning to surround her... the hole in her chest was becoming larger and bloodier.

Suddenly, a pair of thin arms hoisted her shaking body onto a slender, hunched back. Misa blinked in shock as she realized that "B" was practically giving her a piggyback ride. The blood that had soaked her own black corset was already leaving its maroon imprint onto his white shirt.

Hesitantly, she let herself relax in his grasp. "...Thank you" she murmured.

"This isn't a kindness," he said stoically. "This is part of the deal."

"...What?"

"You can't walk without a heart," the black-haired man said matter-of-factly. "I don't know how you managed before you found me. I'll be your legs-"

"-And I'll be your eyes," Misa finished. "All right."

There was a sense of relief that washed over her as she realized that she didn't need to walk by herself anymore. So great was this feeling, she failed to realize that the hole in her chest was becoming slightly smaller.

~0~0~0~

"Don't bother."

Misa visibly twitched, her fingers just barely grazing the tempting apple that hung from the withering branches of a large, peeling tree. The bright red skin called out to her hungry stomach like a siren to a ship's crew. They had been traveling for a long time now, and the only "food" the two had encountered had been that of a dying, grotesque creature that lied on the side of a forgotten road. Misa had insisted on not eating it. B had only laughed. But now, the lone apple floating so sweetly on the branch of a dead tree beckoned Misa, tempted her to take a bite out of its tender body. Only B's bored tone blaring below her had snapped her out of its trance.

She had sniffed, shifting her body in his grasp as she reached for the apple once more. "Why not?" she whined. Pain was beginning to gnaw at her insides as her stomach let out a loud growl.

"It's not real." he stated in that monotonous voice. "It's an illusion."

"How did you even know I was reaching for an apple?" she snapped in frustration.

"You're predictable." he said plainly. "And I suppose it would not be accurate to say that I am 'blind'."

A look of shock took over the blonde's face before she slumped over against his frail frame. "That doesn't make any sense." She stared at the fruit that continued to beckon her, _tempt_ her. "How can you be blind...and see?" Sweat was dripping down her skin, the ongoing starvation driving her insane. "I..." A drive of desperation suddenly racked the girl's body, and frantically, _madly_, she grasped the apple with delirious possessiveness. And then...her eyes widened in disgusted terror.

The vibrant, crisp red of the fruit began to melt away in her hands, disintegrating into thousands of little fire ants, crawling onto her arms with frightening pace. "Ha..." A sound tried to escape her throat but faltered as she began to breathe heavily and pant and whimper in horror. Dozens of thousands of little mouths began to nip, dig into her flesh, biting and tearing away to the bone.

"Ge..."

More blood was spilling...the little red insects were becoming indistinguishable against the dark fluid they were now swimming in.

"GET THEM OFF!" she shrieked, thrashing and tossing about, clawing into B's shoulders as she waved her hands around urgently. He was losing her balance, she knew, but all common sense had left her mind as she cried and screamed and begged to some unknown god to make it stop.

"Stop it!" the man below her hissed as she dug her dirty fingers into his skin, sobbing loudly against his ears. She began to shake him violently, heeding some mad notion in her mind that _he_ could make it better...all she needed to do was rely.

Ants were beginning to swarm onto his pale body, and he could sense the same pang of agony that was already consuming Misa. He stumbled onto his knees, shaking and writhing in pain, digging his hands into the dirt beneath him. Suddenly, a pair of trembling, bitten hands grabbed at his tattered shirt, tearing it off him before swatting away the remaining insects. He allowed himself a soft sigh of relief, noting that the bites on his skin were not deep at all, and that they would heal over eventually.

He turned over to face his companion, listening for the soft breaths that were escaping her mouth at a rapid pace. He touched her arm.

"...Did they leave you?" he asked.

"...Yes." Misa managed to breathe out. Her body was covered with sores...but she was grateful, and somewhat shocked. Those bugs...those disgusting, horrendous, terrifying ants...they were gone. And it was all very strange. They had refused to leave her when she tried rubbing them away from her own body, they had continued to savagely bite and mark her when she tried picking them off herself...but as soon as she had desperately shooed them away from "B", they disappeared. Why, she couldn't comprehend.

And as she savored the tremendous relief, she found that she didn't care either.

All was silent for a while, as the two struggled to retain their breath and gather their wits. Misa remained on her back, staring aimlessly at the sky. B was sitting in a strange crisscross, resting his head on his elbows. He was staring at something, or nothing. Misa couldn't tell, and in many ways, she really didn't want to know.

His voice broke the barrier of quietness that had enveloped them, his voice bland, but barely concealing a strange mix of relief and anger in his tone. "I told you not to touch it," he continued, his fingers beginning to pick at the wilting crabgrass that surrounded them. "I told you not to touch it." Misa felt her face blanch as she witnessed him violently yank out a handful of grass and throw it at the wind. "You could have become one of them." His voice was still so quiet, barely a murmur, but his limbs were shaking so heavily Misa wondered if there was a silent wind rattling his bones.

A lone apple rolled across the dusty grounds, withered, rotten, and aged. The blonde inwardly flinched as the grayish tip barely grazed her leg while it slowed to a halt. She felt herself grow cold at the idea of experiencing that again...but there was a certain impulse that hit her, even as her inner workings screamed for her to stop, that prompted her to grab the apple and plop it onto "B"'s palm. She watched as his back grew stiff, and slowly relaxed into a curious stance. He delicately picked the fruit up by its stem, similar to how Ryuzaki used to hold things...but strangely, and somehow welcomely different. He pressed the skin against his lips, letting his tongue out to give out a quick lick before taking small bite.

Nothing. No flesh eating insects, no horror, no pain.

Just the sounds of teeth biting into fruit, just the sensation of temporarily being whole.

_In Hell, devils laugh at my sorrow, yet weep at my jeers._

B silently stared at the half-eaten apple, handling it lightly. "...Interesting." he said, with an odd sort of fascination, as if he had just conducted an experiment. "Very interesting." He grabbed Misa's wrist, ignoring her flinching as he pushed the bitten fruit into her hands.

"Eat." he said simply.

She gave an almost overenthusiastic nod, giving the apple a large bite, relishing in the dry, grainy, yet fulfilling bits of food. For the first time in a long while, she smiled. And, if for but a moment, she could have sworn to have felt a heart beat boldly inside her chest.

~0~0~0~

Time had no place in Mu, but sometimes Misa felt as if this was all she had ever known- walking through murky swamps, trudging through sandy deserts, traveling under an eternal darkness with no one but a strange man who served as her legs. Her other life seemed so distant, so far away from the blackness that surrounded her constantly. It seemed so...surreal. As if it had all been just a blurry dream from long ago. It didn't fit.

_Pages of my story flutter around me, but I do not remember writing a word._

But...it wasn't horrible. At least, not in her mind. "B" was odd, no doubt- he was always so callous and lethargic, perhaps even borderline misanthropic. But he provided her company in a friendless world, and always seemed to know what was going on, blind or not. "To be blind is to see", he had once told her. It had been so long ago, but it still made her head hurt trying to wrap around the idea behind the message.

.o..o..

_"Are you really blind?"_

_B stopped in the middle of his tracks, bringing a finger to his mouth inquisitively. "If you are inquiring if I cannot see that which is around me, then yes. I am very much blind."_

_Misa scrunched her nose in thought. "Then...how are you **not** blind?"_

_B remained silent for a small amount of time, his bare feet scuffling through mud and water. Dark, decaying trees loomed over the two like steep statues, watching through cracked, frozen eyes. The path was black and neverending, it seemed; yet they walked on._

_"I can see the truth." he finally spoke. It was so straightforward and honest, almost as if he had revealed a secret that had lurked in the deepest, darkest corners of his heart. The female bit her lip as she tried to decipher the meaning behind his words. "What truth?" she asked again._

_"Numbers no longer have importance," he murmured, almost more to himself than to her. "Just chains. Chains and the name." _

_A part of her wanted to press him further, to see if he truly did have the Eyes, but a larger portion decided against it. So she turned her thoughts towards Light. _

_Light had her heart. Light **owned **her heart. She still relied on him, in some ways- he was the first thing she saw in the morning, and his memory was the only thing that existed at night. And her insides still fluttered when she thought of how he saved her, and how he took vengeance for her. But then, her chest would bleed, and she would collapse in a bloody heap. B would never outright help her...just watch. Wait. Pick her up when her convulsions finished. Walk on like nothing happened._

_Memories of Light provided comfort. But they destroyed her, tore her up to bits in the process._

_She could see that truth clearly. Perhaps she deserved a blindfold, too._

.o..o..

She buried her face in B's ragged black hair, an inexplicable wave of exhaustion hitting her hard. Memories of her past life began to flicker across her eyes like an old film. Her first day of school, her first ballet lesson, going to the park with her mommy and daddy, singing in a talent contest, entering highschool, painting her nails with her sister...walking back home from school and witnessing her family being brutally slaughtered, watching a murderer go free, entering a blur, worshipping Kira...finding Light.

It was a sick sort of comfort, like a devil singing a soft lullaby in her ears. It was all so blatantly a lie...but she chose to shove all inhibitions down the drain to bask in the make-believe. At least in dreams, you can escape nightmares.

So it puzzled her still that she was becoming so attached to her substitute "heart"; each hour that passed, each moment, they walked in silence, with him quietly carrying her, and her prodding him to where he had to go. Where were they going exactly? What were they looking for? A heart? Eyes? Misa wasn't sure, but some unknown force drove them both towards _something._

And through it all, she found herself giving him bits and pieces of food that she savaged, washing him down with what ever little water she had, and being happy. And, as whatever warped time went on...he reciprocated the favor. All in the name of "the deal", but still. There was a sort of subtle joy that she felt writhe within her as their travels grew longer and more weary; their time together seemed slightly...nice.

She drifted away from her daydreams as she felt him stop by a large stone. Her eyes gazed upwards- she could have sworn that the tip of the rock just barely scraped the sky. B motioned for her to climb off, and she did so, sliding off his back onto the muddy ground below. They were in some swamp-like area, their clothes dirty and sticky with murky liquid that Misa did not dare try to identify. Her hands wandered towards her chest, tracing the old, yet fresh wound that still gaped wide open, exposed for the world to see. She shuddered, quickly moving her fingers away from her torso before turning to face the dark haired man. He was leaning against the cracked surface of the stone, hands fiddling around with an old piece of cloth that they had picked up from one of the abandoned colonies.

"...Why don't we ever travel with the others?" she asked tentatively, playing with her hair absentmindedly. "You said yourself, we're safer when we're in a group."

His hands didn't hesitate for a moment. "Because they are looking for something they will never find." he said simply.

"Their soulmate?" Misa guessed.

"Yes."

She scooted closer to where he was, looking at him with quizzical eyes. "What makes you think they won't ever find each other?" she asked quietly.

A small, stale smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. "Because they are idiots. They can't see it."

A puzzled look came over the girl's face, her brow furrowed in deep thought. "I...don't understand..." she muttered. There was something he was going to say, something he was going to reveal, that she knew was going to be important...but she didn't want to hear it. She wanted to run away. She didn't want to see anything.

You spend your whole life searching and missing something that was never gone.

Silently, she forced herself to sit still. "What..." -she choked a bit, clearing her throat before continuing- "What can't they see? What can't these people see?"

A hoarse chuckle escaped his throat, bitter and strangely entertained. "It's almost sad. They wander around in those large groups of theirs, searching for two or three eternities for a loved one, anyone from their past lives that they believe can save them." He paused, his voice drifting away from the initial amusement towards a more sobering tone. "And sometimes...sometimes their right. A spouse, a child, maybe even a parent and child. But many times...they crawl away and rot like animals. Still looking, but never finding."

Misa crawled closer to him. "But what can't they see?" she pressed again, this time a bit more desperately.

His face turned towards hers, a sick, sad smile plastered on his face. "The person they spend their lives looking for...is almost always right beside them."

The air became still. The silence thudded in her ears, color drained away from her face, her eyes widened in fear, and shock, and disgust, and...joy. "R...right...beside them?" she repeated, almost shyly.

"Ye..." B's back stiffened, his shoulders becoming tense with realization. "No. _No_."

It all became a blur, and suddenly, Misa's head hit the ground with so much force she didn't have time to think. He was above her, his hands clenched around her throat deliriously, squeezing with such power he wondered how he hadn't snapped her slender neck.

Her lungs were burning with need, her mouth gasping for any air, any air, and she thrashed and kicked and pounded against his chest fiercely, but hopelessly. Her eyes were full of horror and hate and...betrayal. He continued, huffing with animalistic grunts as he hoovered above her menacingly.

"There is _no one_." he spat, and shook her body violently. "I deserve _no one_."

Dark liquid began to drip all over her face; dazedly, she realized that his eyes were bleeding. No...not bleeding.

Crying.

His grasp around her throat loosened, and a long breath of air finally rushed through her lungs. She struggled to sit up coughing mercilessly before facing her attacker. Her mind boggled with wonder at the sheer 180 that his emotions experienced. No longer was he fearsome and terrifying...now, as he cried shamelessly to the ground, clutching his knees against his chest, it was actually... pitiful.

Rationally, she should have ran away, she should have started her own search for Light, without the psycho. But in Mu, rationality wasn't always rational, and her emotions always ruled her anyways. So she knelt down beside him and brought him into a desperate, protective embrace. She felt him stiffen underneath her, and for a moment, she feared that he would attack again. Instead, he relaxed, tentatively resting his head against her shoulder.

Misa wasn't sure what exactly happened, or why he had reacted so violently, but for a moment, she didn't care. They stayed like that, with her finally falling asleep with him in her arms.

_The end was nearing. The story needed to begin._


End file.
